Hungarian (2)

Author:
János Mihalecz

At first it had no name. It was the thing itself, the vivid thing. It was his friend. On windy days it danced, demented, waving wild arms, or in the silence of evening drowsed and dreamed, swaying in the blue, the goldeny air. Even at night it did not go away. Wrapped in his truckle bed, he could hear it stirring darkly outside in the dark, all the long night long. There were others, nearer to him, more vivid still than this, they came and went, talking, but they were wholly familiar, almost a part of himself, while it, steadfast and aloof, belonged to the mysterious outside, to the wind and the weather and the goldeny blue air. It was part of the world, and yet it was his friend.

Look, Nicolas, look! See the big tree!

Tree. That was its name. And also: the linden. They were nice words. He had known them a long time before he knew what they meant. They did not mean themselves, they were nothing in themselves, they meant the dancing singing thing outside. In wind, in silence, at night, in the changing air, it changed and yet was changelessly the tree, the linden tree. That was strange.

Everything had a name, but although every name was nothing without the thing named, the thing cared nothing for its name, had no need of a name, and was itself only. And then there were the names that signified no substantial thing, as linden and tree signified that dark dancer. His mother asked him who did he love the best. Love did not dance, nor tap the window with frantic fingers, love had no leafy arms to shake, yet when she spoke that name that named nothing, some impalpable but real thing within him responded as if to a summons, as if it had heard its name spoken. That was very strange.

He soon forgot about these enigmatic matters, and learned to talk as others talked, full of conviction, unquestioningly.

The sky is blue, the sun is gold, the linden tree is green. Day is light, it ends, night falls, and then it is dark. You sleep, and in the morning wake again. But a day will come when you will not wake. That is death. Death is sad. Sadness is what happiness is not. And so on. How simple it all was, after all! There was no need even to think about it. He had only to be, and life would do the rest, would send day to follow day until there were no days left, for him, and then he would go to Heaven and be an angel. Hell was under the ground.

Matthew Mark Luke and John

Bless the bed that I lie on

If I die before I wake

Ask holy God my soul to take

He peered from behind clasped hands at his mother kneeling beside him in the candlelight. Under a burnished coif of coiled hair her face was pale and still, like the face of the Madonna in the picture. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved, mouthing mutely the pious lines as he recited them aloud. When he stumbled on the hard words she bore him up gently, in a wonderfully gentle voice. He loved her the best, he said. She rocked him in her arms and sang a song.

For me, Banville’s novel gave the impression of a literary work that one reads, and rereads from time to time, to find a new experience, a new meaning behind his words. Comprehending the language, the voice that Banville chose as his narrative style in these particular excerpts was a hard task, and giving a Hungarian counterpart for it was even more demanding. I sensed in these texts a child, brimming with curiosity and simple associations that are characteristic of pre-elementary school aged children, and a young adult, somewhat confused in his endeavor of defining himself, but finding a blissful confidence when he does.

The main issue for me when translating Banville was the numerous lengthy sentences. In my experiences, the Hungarian language does not handle well the long explanatory narratives that I have so often encountered in English literature. The challenge lied in the decision whether to break up the sentences to clarify the message the author wanted to convey, but also break the flow in the process, or to leave the sentences as they are to preserve the style, but risk being misunderstood. I decided to try and keep Banville’s style intact and I am satisfied with the work I have done.

The other challenge in translation was with the personal pronouns. While in English, the subject of the act could easily be identified by using either he or she, Hungarian only has a gender-neutral third person singular form. The way the internal monologue of the writer went, a direct translation would result in a profound confusion regarding the subject of the matters. I resolved this issue either by adding Nicolaus or his mother to the translated text, or in one case, by conjoining two relatively shorter sentences together.

What I found to be a surprisingly pleasant challenge in the course of translation was the research to find out more about the prayer and the nursery song in the text, and to find a fitting Hungarian counterpart and including it in the text in a manner that corresponds to Banville’s writing. In my understanding the prayer and the song are incorrectly recited, as the child who is still learning to talk does not remember them well. Accordingly, I attempted to recall and then forget the correct words for a Hungarian nursery song and tried to present it in way that would give the same experience to a Hungarian reader as it gave to me after finding out about the origin of the song.

The experience of translating Banville’s text not only assured me of my tendency to immerse myself in literary translation, but made me realize the scarcity of novels in Hungary that are of a foreign origin and would enable to us to familiarize with different thought processes and different cultures. I hope I can deliver – and I shall definitely try to – my translation to my peers, so that it may inspire them to extend their interests to reading – or translating – foreign literature.